The role of securitization in bank liquidity and funding management

This paper studies the role of securitization in bank management. I propose a new index of “bank loan portfolio liquidity” which can be thought of as a weighted average of the potential to securitize loans of a given type, where the weights reflect the composition of a bank loan portfolio. I use this new index to show that by allowing banks to convert illiquid loans into liquid funds, securitization reduces banks' holdings of liquid securities and increases their lending ability. Furthermore, securitization provides banks with an additional source of funding and makes bank lending less sensitive to cost of funds shocks. By extension, the securitization weakens the ability of the monetary authority to affect banks' lending activity but makes banks more susceptible to liquidity and funding crisis when the securitization market is shut down.     

The role of risk management in mergers and merger waves

We show that merger activity and particularly waves are significantly driven by risk management considerations. Increases in cash flow uncertainty encourage firms to vertically integrate and this contributes to the start of merger waves. These effects are incremental to previously identified causes of wave activity. Our risk management hypothesis is further supported by cross-sectional differences in the likelihood that a firm vertically integrates, and by the post-acquisition characteristics of vertically integrating firms. These results are consistent with the view (from the industrial organization literature) that vertical integration is an operational hedging mechanism that reduces the cost of increased uncertainty.     

The role of accounting conservatism in management forecast bias

We investigate whether management earnings forecasts fully incorporate information in historical accounting conservatism. We find that management earnings forecasts are more optimistic for firms with greater accounting conservatism in the previous year. We further examine whether this conservatism-related optimistic bias in management earnings forecasts varies with managers’ difficulty predicting earnings accurately, managers’ opportunistic incentives, and the firms’ litigation risk. We find that the negative association between management forecast errors and conservatism increases, to various extent, with the firms’ operating cycles, earnings volatility, and the width of forecast range but does not change with proxies for opportunistic incentives or litigation risk. These results suggest that forecast difficulty is the primary reason for managers’ failure to incorporate conservatism fully in their earnings forecasts.     

The role of accounting disaggregation in detecting and mitigating earnings management

Though ample empirical evidence alludes to the importance of disaggregated accounting data in the context of earnings management, extant theory considers biases in reporting mostly at the aggregated level of the accounting report. By introducing accounting disaggregation into the conventional theoretical framework of earnings management, this study highlights the essential role that disaggregated accounting data play in detecting and mitigating reporting manipulations. Disaggregated reports are shown to be especially effective when they consist of accounting items that are tightly interrelated by their fundamental economic nature, differ considerably in their sensitivity to reporting manipulations, and vary in their signs.     

Corporate governance and risk management: The role of risk management and compensation committees

This paper examines the role of compensation and risk committees in managing and monitoring the risk behaviour of Australian financial firms in the period leading up to the global financial crisis (2006–2008). This empirical study of 711 observations of financial sector firms demonstrates how the coordination of risk management and compensation committees reduces information asymmetry. The study shows that the composition of the risk and compensation committees is positively associated with risk, which, in turn, is associated with firm performance. More importantly, information asymmetry is reduced when a director is a member of both the risk and compensation committees which moderate the negative association between risk and firm performance for firms with high risk.     

The long-term role of non-traditional banking in profitability and risk profiles: Evidence from a panel of U.S. banking institutions

The goal of this empirical study is to identify empirically and on a panel basis how non-traditional bank activities affect directly the profitability and risk profiles of the financial institutions involved in such activities. Through a dataset that covers 1725 U.S. financial institutions involved in non-traditional bank activities spanning the period 2000–2013 and the methodology of panel cointegration, the empirical findings document that non-traditional bank activities exert a positive effect on both the profitability and the insolvency risk. The results could be important for regulators given they could serve as a pre-warning signal that sends a clear message to regulators about the potential systemic risk that exists within the financial markets.     

The dynamics of earnings management in IPOs and the role of venture capital

We investigate the dynamics of earnings management (EM) in IPOs and the role of venture capitalist (VC) in hampering such practice. We study the behavior of EM in four phases: Pre-IPO, IPO, Lock-up and Post-lock-up. We find that VC-sponsored firms tend to do more EM in the Pre-IPO period, and less in two subsequent periods. These results are distinct for those of Wongsunwai (2013), for which, VC-sponsored firms do less EM only in the IPO period. We also find that VC and non-VC-sponsored firms do EM around the IPO in distinct fashions. Non-VC-sponsored firms inflate earnings during the IPO period and deflate in the Lock-up and Post-lock-up periods. VC-sponsored firms inflate earnings in the Pre-IPO period and deflate earnings only in the Lock-up period. Our results are robust with respect to how one measures EM and the statistical methods used.     

基层商业银行合规风险管理现状、问题及改进对策

本文阐述了我国基层商业银行合规风险管理现状,分析了基层银行合规风险管理建设中存在的问题,结合银行合规风险管理的目标,提出了进一步加强商业银行合规风险管理的若干建议。     

Designing management control in hybrid organizations: The role of path creation and morphogenesis

Path-creating change in organizational form is proposed as an important element in achieving management control in hybrid organizations. Using case examples from large-scale projects in the architectural, engineering, and construction industry, as well as from joint ventures in the oil and gas industry, we highlight the role of mindfully synthesizing new organizational forms in the design of management control systems. A series of paradoxes is disclosed, in which attempts to achieve control through mimetic adoption of established management control techniques lead to reduced control. On the other hand, path-creating deviations from institutionalized practices, resulted in improved project and venture performance. It has been argued that the design of inter-organizational management control systems seeks to enable organizations to compete for resources and efficiency, and also to obtain institutional legitimacy. Institutional theory proposes that isomorphism permits organizations to obtain that legitimacy and explains their design. In this paper, we propose that path creation and morphogenesis, which deviates from isomorphism, is an additional consideration in explaining management control system design.     

Environmental management control systems: The role of contextual and strategic factors

This study examines the role of contextual and strategic factors in the development of environmental management control systems in manufacturing companies. In particular, the authors test the roles of perceived ecological environmental uncertainty, perceived stakeholder pressures, and the degree of corporate environmental proactivity on the development of environmental management control systems. The main results from a survey of 256 manufacturing companies suggest that companies that perceive greater ecological environmental uncertainty are less inclined to develop a proactive environmental strategy, environmental information system, or formal environmental management control system. Market, community, and organizational stakeholders motivate environmental proactivity, as well as the development of different environmental management control systems. Regulatory stakeholders only encourage the development of an environmental information system.     

The role of multiple values in developing management accounting practices in hybrid organisations

The aim of this study is to investigate how multiple values in non-profit hybrid organisations influence the adoption of management accounting practices. The empirical analysis centres on hybrid organisations established as co-production and co-management initiatives in social care. Pragmatic constructivism, centred on the role of values, informs the empirical analysis. This research shows that management accounting practices can develop without conflicts when only some actors are interested in management and their values predominate, despite the coexistence of multiple and conflicting values. However, in this situation, where conflicts are eliminated, the validity of accounting is compromised, as it does not represent all values. The evidence of this lack of validity is clear when considering the poor development of management accounting practices and the inability to develop some relevant measures, such as outcome measures. When only some values predominate, the opportunity provided by the multiplicity of values to the development of management accounting practices is lost, and possible inefficiencies may emerge. The use of pragmatic constructivism shows that this lack of validity, determined by the non-integration of values, would be reduced by increasing the discussion among conflicting actors’ values. Findings suggest that the presence of conflicting values, that at first glance may be interpreted as an impediment, would, on the contrary, be useful to support accounting validity, when stimulating discussion. In this respect, conflicting values should work alongside communication, to include dimensions of reality.     

The role of institutional investors in the inventory and cash management practices of firms in Asia

This paper examines the role of a particular class of institutional investors, domestic and foreign banks, in corporate decisions that have liquidity implications such as inventory and cash management. Using a sample of 256 non-financial listed firms in six Asian countries over the period of 2002–2005, this paper shows that foreign banks improve inventory and cash management practices, due to their superior monitoring of the managers. The disproportionate numbers of the institutional investors across industrial sectors in these Asian countries seem to suggest that some industrial sectors have stable demand of their products, such as in consumer goods sector, which is an attraction, for these institutional investors. Furthermore, the paper finds that forward-looking government policies are crucial to entry of these institutional investors in the developing countries. The research findings have implications for board structure and corporate governance standards.     

Agency problems and the simultaneity of financial decision making: The role of institutional ownership

This study investigated the simultaneity of four financial variables that are hypothesized to control agency costs. It builds a model showing that leverage, dividends, insider ownership, and institutional ownership are determined simultaneously as each of the variables is hypothesized to affect agency costs. We found that in 1987, institutional ownership was determined simultaneously with leverage, dividends, and insider ownership, but the coefficients do not support agency hypotheses. However, in 1993, we found a simultaneous system consistent with institutional ownership being a substitute for agency control variables.     

The role of strategic enterprise risk management and organizational flexibility in easing new regulatory compliance

The impact of new regulatory requirements for internal control reporting on an organization's ability to maintain strategic flexibility has been debated in the popular press extensively. This paper tests theory from strategic management to examine the relationship between an organizations' pre-regulatory strength of strategic enterprise risk management (ERM) processes and their ability to react to new regulatory mandates. In the context of companies' adoption of SOX Section 404 internal control reporting requirements, we examine organizations' pre-SOX ERM processes, ERM supporting technologies, and organizational flexibility in order to better understand the antecedents to the difficulty encountered in meeting SOX 404 requirements. Using responses from 113 Chief Audit Executives (CAEs), we find that organizations with stronger strategic ERM processes and flexible organizational structures already in place incurred little difficulty in implementing SOX 404 mandates. On the other hand, organizations using weaker ERM processes, which focused on control compliance, experienced more difficulty. These findings provide key insights into the importance of strategic ERM in effectively complying with new regulatory controls in volatile environments.     

Reversing an impairment loss and earnings management: The role of corporate governance

This paper examines whether the reversal of a previously recognized impairment loss provides an opportunity for earnings management, and whether such behavior is associated with managers' incentives. It also examines whether a corporate-governance mechanism can mitigate this behavior. Since 2005, listed companies in Taiwan have been required to comply with accounting standards, equivalent to International Accounting Standards (IAS) No. 36 “Impairment of Assets,” which allow reversals of asset-impairment losses. Data on a sample of 55 firms that reversed impairment losses between 2005 and the first quarter of 2007 were matched by industry and size with 55 control firms. Empirical results show that firms recognizing more impairment losses are more likely to reverse impairment losses when doing so would avoid an earnings decline in a subsequent period, which is consistent with the “cookie jar” reserve hypothesis. We also show that such behavior is more pronounced for firms with higher debt ratios, consistent with earnings management being associated with the incentive to avoid violation of debt covenants. However, an effective corporate governance mechanism could mitigate such behavior. Our study may contribute to the debate on global convergence with IFRS, especially convergence between IFRS and U.S. GAAP with respect to the “Impairment of Assets,” by providing a rationale for the latter's prohibition of reversals. It may also contribute to the corporate-governance literature by showing the effect of governance mechanisms on deterring earnings management.     

Disentangling the role of variance and covariance information in portfolio selection problems

The covariation among financial asset returns is often a key ingredient used in the construction of optimal portfolios. Estimating covariances from data, however, is challenging due to the potential influence of estimation error, specially in high-dimensional problems, which can impact negatively the performance of the resulting portfolios. We address this question by putting forward a simple approach to disentangle the role of variance and covariance information in the case of mean-variance efficient portfolios. Specifically, mean-variance portfolios can be represented as a two-fund rule: one fund is a fully invested portfolio that depends on diagonal covariance elements, whereas the other is a long-short, self financed portfolio associated with the presence of non-zero off-diagonal covariance elements. We characterize the contribution of each of these two components to the overall performance in terms of out-of-sample returns, risk, risk-adjusted returns and turnover. Finally, we provide an empirical illustration of the proposed portfolio decomposition using both simulated and real market data.     

Do targets grab the cash in takeovers: The role of earnings management

Extant research on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) provides evidence that acquirers underperform subsequent to the takeover completion. Such evidence is more unequivocal for acquirers that finance the acquisition by issuing equity relative to those that use cash. Current literature recognizes various reasons for this underperformance, most of which suggest overvaluation of the acquirers and/or overpayment for the targets at the time of acquisition announcement. Alternatively, this paper aims to investigate whether acquirers' post-takeover abnormal return is also attributed to target firms' real and/or accrual earnings management. Our results indicate that, on average, targets manage earnings upwards using real transactions rather than accruals, during the year preceding the takeover. More specifically, we find evidence of earnings management through sales among targets of cash acquisitions and that it is significantly and negatively related to the post-acquisition performance of the acquirers. These findings suggest that there is an association between the method of financing in acquisitions and earnings management in target firms, which could impact the post-takeover performance of acquirers.     

Earnings management of target firms and deal premiums: The role of industry relatedness

This paper contributes to the merger and acquisitions (M&A) literature by providing evidence for the role of industry relatedness in the association between target firms' earnings management (EM) before the deal and the premium offered by the acquirer. We argue that familiarity with the industry's policies and practices is a crucial factor that helps acquirers to see through targets' EM. Our evidence supports this prediction in relation to accounting manipulation as we observe that the income increasing accrual manipulation of the target results in significantly higher premiums offered by acquirers in interindustry deals, which is not the case when targets and acquirers belong to the same industry.     

Integrated foreign exchange risk management: The role of import in medium-sized manufacturing firms

Empirical research has focused on export as a proxy for exchange rate exposure and the use of foreign exchange derivatives as an instrument to deal with this exposure. This empirical study applies an integrated foreign exchange risk management approach with a particular focus on the role of import in medium-sized manufacturing firms in Denmark (a small, open economy). We find a strong, negative relation between import and the use of foreign exchange derivatives on the aggregate level. Our findings are consistent with the notion that firms use import to match the foreign exchange exposure created by foreign sales activities.