社会信任、政治关系与民营企业银行贷款

本文基于社会嵌入性理论的研究视角,考察了社会信任与政治关系对民营企业银行贷款(贷款率、贷款成本、贷款期限)的影响,研究发现,社会信任与政治关系对民营企业银行贷款具有显著影响,且二者之间存在替代效应,但它们产生的经济后果不同。本文研究结果表明,社会信任与政治关系之类的社会资本对企业获取资源具有工具性效用,但是不同社会资本工具性效用产生的经济后果存在着显著差异,在我国转轨经济背景下,对企业社会资本的培育应予以正确的引导和制度的规范。     

董事网络、独立董事治理与高管激励

独立董事的治理行为受到所处社会网络的影响。基于"董事在董事会同时任职的直接或间接联结关系"而形成的董事网络,本文利用社会网络分析方法检验了独立董事的网络特征对其发挥在促进高管激励有效性影响中的作用机理。结果发现:公司独立董事网络中心度越高,高管薪酬-业绩敏感性越强;与非国有上市公司相比,国有上市公司中独立董事网络中心度与高管薪酬-业绩敏感性的正相关关系更弱;进一步研究发现,用独立董事网络中心度解释的高管薪酬部分对未来业绩有促进作用。结论丰富了"网络和治理"研究的证据。     

Social capital and capital allocation efficiency

Based on the social norms and structural theories of social capital, this study examines the relationship between community social capital and the firms’ capital allocation efficiency. We hypothesize and find that the community social capital of a firm's headquarter area has a negative and statistically significant impact on its capital allocation inefficiency, which is robust to alternative proxies for community social capital and capital allocation inefficiency, propensity score matching and instrumental variable regressions. In addition, we find that the effect of community social capital is more pronounced for firms with poor internal ethical culture and weak network connections to outside executives and directors, implying that community social capital becomes important in these situations. This finding links prior social norms and networks literature to capital allocation studies in that the norms and networks components of community social capital discipline self-interested managers’ behavior and reduce information asymmetry-two channels of capital allocation efficiency. Overall, community social capital works as a compensatory monitoring and information transfer mechanism and improves the firms’ capital allocation efficiency.     

Building Trust? Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes and Social Capital*

In this paper, we propose a measure of social capital based on behaviour in a public goods game. We conducted a public goods game within 28 groups in two similar neighbourhoods in Cartagena, Colombia, one of which had been targeted for over two years by a conditional cash transfer programme that has an important social component. The level of cooperation we observe in the ‘treatment’ community is considerably higher than that in the ‘control’ community. The two neighbourhoods, however, although similar in many dimensions, turn out to be significantly different in other observable variables. The result we obtain in terms of cooperation, however, is robust to controls for these observable differences. We also compare our measure of social capital with other more traditional measures that have been used in the literature.     

Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability

In this paper, we empirically examine whether superior performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) results in lower credit risk, measured by credit ratings and zero-volatility spreads (z-spreads). We are especially interested in how the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related performance of the corresponding countries moderates this relationship. We find only weak evidence that superior corporate social performance (CSP) results in systematically reduced credit risk. However, we do find strong support for our hypothesis that a country’s ESG performance moderates the CSP–credit risk relationship. Superior CSP is regarded as risk-reducing and rewarded with better ratings and lower z-spreads only if it is recognized by the environment. In addition, we find a reduction of corporate bonds’ z-spreads by approx. 9.64 basis points if the CSP of a company mirrors the ESG performance of the country it is located in.     

Are there Social Spillovers in Consumers’ Security Assessments of Payment Instruments?

Even though security of payments has long been identified as an important aspect of the consumer payment experience, recent literature fails to appropriately assess the extent of social spillovers among payment users. We test for the existence and importance of such spillovers by analyzing whether social influence affects consumers’ perceptions of the security of payment instruments. Based on a 2008–2014 annual panel data survey of consumers, we find strong evidence of social spillovers in payment markets: others’ perceptions of security of payment instruments exert a positive influence on one’s own payment security perceptions. The significant and robust results imply that a consumer’s assessments of security converge to his peers’ average assessment: a 10 percent change in the divergence between one’s own security rating and peers’ average rating will result in a 7 percent change in one’s own rating in the next period. The results are robust to many specifications and do not change when we control for actual fraud or crime data. Our results indicate that spillovers rather than reflection appear to be the cause, although separating the two causes is very difficult (Manski 1993). In particular, the spillovers are stronger for people who experience an exogenous shock to security perception, people who have more social interactions, and younger consumers, who are more likely to be influenced by social media. We also examine the effects of social spillovers on payment behavior (that is, on decisions regarding payment adoption and use). Our results indicate that social spillovers have a rather limited impact on payment behavior, as others’ perceptions seem to affect one’s own payment behavior mainly indirectly through the effect on one’s own perceptions.     

Too close for comfort? Geographic propinquity to political power and stock returns

We show that firm headquarters’ geographic proximity to political power centers (state capitals) is associated with higher abnormal returns. Consistent with the notion that this effect is rooted in social network links, we find it is more pronounced in communities with high levels of sociability and political values’ homophily, and that it dissipates when firms move their headquarters to another state. Finally, in line with the view that investors perceive such networks to be associated with political risk, we find that this effect is particularly strong when there are substantial levels of corruption, dependency on government spending, and politicians’ turnover.     

The impacts of Net Stable Funding Ratio requirement on Banks’ choices of debt maturity

In this paper, we study the impacts of the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) requirement on banks’ choices of debt maturity and asset structures, with consequences for banks’ profitability and social welfare. We develop a model in which the manager of a bank determines both debt maturity structure (short-term vs. long-term debt) and asset composition (cash vs. risky assets). To address the incongruence of goals between the bank manager and the bank stakeholders, in our model we assume that the manager receives only a proportion of the bank’s profit in her pay schedule. We demonstrate that the optimal choices of the manager regarding debt maturity and asset structure lead to socially inefficient (second-best) outcomes because the manager internalizes only part of the social benefit. We then study the implications of the NSFR requirement on the manager’s choices and demonstrate that the NSFR requirement can enhance social welfare and reach an efficient (first-best) outcome, if a sufficiently low weight of short-term debt as available stable funding is required by regulation. Further, we find that under the same conditions the NSFR requirement reduces banks’ use of short-term financing and thus increases the probability of banks’ survival and profits from the ex ante point of view, while it decreases banks’ profits from the ex post point of view, since it reduces the threshold for banks’ survival. Our main results have some interesting empirical implications: under certain conditions, the NSFR requirement may reduce both bank failures and banks’ observed profits.     

Social capital and access to informal finance – evidence from Chinese private firms

This study investigates how firms’ social capital affects their access to informal finance. We argue that social capital helps reduce information asymmetry, increase trust between related parties and enforce lending contracts, so it has positive effects on firms’ access to informal finance. Using novel survey data of Chinese private firms, we find that firms with more social capital have more access to informal finance with lower costs. Further tests show that the effect of social capital is more significant when firms are located in regions with less developed market and lower community’s social capital and during the 2008 financial crisis.     

On Gray,Malpas, and Brennan's “The role of social accounts: Situating political ideas”

In this paper we situate the political ideas that emanate from Gray, Malpas and Brennan on the role of social accounts (GBM in this issue). We explore Brennan's and Malpas’ work and commentary on social accounts in view of existent work in social and environmental accounting. We especially focus on the concept of affluenza and understanding of space and the role of accounting and raise questions that remain unanswered by the authors.     

Social compliance audits and multinational corporation supply chain: evidence from a study of the rituals of social audits

This study investigates the use of social compliance audits in the supply chain of multinational corporations (MNCs). Particularly, we explore the use of such audits in assessing and managing the working conditions of factory workers in the garment industry in a developing nation. Through a range of interviews with MNCs’ internal auditors, with commissioned external auditors and with representatives of the suppliers in Bangladesh, this study finds that social compliance audits become ritual strategies and are not a primary means of advancing workers’ rights. Drawing on the concept of surrogate accountability, the study suggests that to create real change in workers’ conditions and in order to hold MNCs and their suppliers accountable, some form of surrogate (government, non-governmental organisations or media) intervention is necessary. This is, we argue, preferable to leaving it in the hands of ‘markets’ and simply waiting for another major incident such as Rana Plaza to stir public concern. This study contributes to the literature by investigating how social compliance audits are undertaken by MNCs sourcing products from a developing nation, what motivations drive the adoption of such audits, and what, if anything, are the likely outcomes from the process.     

Sequential payments and optimal pricing in payment systems

This paper studies the intraday payment behaviour between heterogeneous banks as well as optimal intraday pricing schemes. The paper shows the social optimality of payment sequencing, which allows a bank to delay payments until the bank receives payments from the counterparty. The payment sequencing allows a bank with high liquidity cost to ‘recycle’ payment inflow from another bank with lower liqudity cost, reducing the aggregate cost of funding of banks to settle all payments. But we also see that the banks have an incentive to delay payments more than the payment sequencing requires. This underscores the importance of social planner’s role reducing settlement delay, while leaving socially efficient payment sequencing. In this context, we compare two different pricing schemes, a standard throughput guideline and a time-varying intraday tariff, to discuss the optimal incentive mechanisms in payment systems for the ‘socially efficient sequential settlement’.     

No one left behind: how social distance affects life-saving decision making

Extant research on social distance and decision-making under risk has mostly focused on how people reach different decisions for themselves than others under the same circumstances. This research adds to this literature by studying how the social distance between the decision-maker and people in danger influences risk preference in life-saving domain. We found that decision-makers tend to be more risk-seeking when the lives of close others are at stake than distant others regardless of whether the situation is framed in terms of loss or gain. However, the effect of social distance on risk preference was eliminated when it was the responsibility of the decision-makers rather than the chance to pick the potential victims to save. By analyzing the shape of value function, we provided preliminary evidence for the hypothesis that decision-makers engage in feeling-based evaluation when close others’ lives are at stake but calculation-based evaluation when distant others’ lives are at stake, which could account for the effect of social distance on risk preference documented in this research. A final experiment yielded direct evidence that evaluation mode mediates the relationship between social distance and risk preference.     

Audit committees’ social capital and financial reporting quality

We draw on social capital theory to examine the relationship between audit committee (AC) members’ social capital and financial reporting quality. Using US data for the period 2001–2010, our results suggest that non-AC directors’ social capital does not appear to be relevant to financial reporting quality. As far as AC members are concerned, our findings show a negative relationship between their social capital and financial reporting quality, suggesting a ‘dark side’ to social capital. Specifically, we find that sitting in multiple ACs (centrality) has a negative impact on reporting quality only for those AC members designated as financial experts. When other proxies for social capital are considered (connectedness, brokerage position and strong ties), our results show that the quality of financial reporting significantly decreases with the social capital of non-financial experts sitting in the AC. We contribute to prior research by: (i) relying on social capital theory, which is widely neglected in accounting research, (ii) using multiple metrics to capture the complex dimensions of social capital, and (iii) discriminating between the effects of financial and non-financial experts’ social capital on reporting quality. Our results suggest policy-makers might wish to limit financial experts’ multiple directorships as well as assess the actual contribution of non-financial experts to AC effectiveness.     

Accounting in Babel? Constructing social accounting as a multi-logical performance

All social practices reproduce certain taken-for-granteds about what exists. Constructions of existence (ontology) go together with notions of what can be known of these things (epistemology), and how such knowledge might be produced (methodology)—along with questions of value or ethics. Increasingly, reflective practitioners—whatever their practice—are exploring the assumptions they ‘put to work’ and the conventions they reproduce. Questions are being asked about how to ‘cope’ with change in a postmodern world, and ethical issues are gaining more widespread attention. If we look at these constructions then we often find social practices: (a) give central significance to the presumption of a single real world; (b) centre a knowing subject who should strive to be separate from knowable objects, i.e. people and things that make up the world; (c) a knowing subject who can produce knowledge (about the real world) that is probably true and a matter of fact rather than value (including ethics). Social practices of this sort often produce a right–wrong debate in which one individual or group imposes their ‘facts’ (and values) on others. Further they often do so using claims to greater or better knowledge (e.g. science, facts …) as their justifications.We use the term “relational constructionism” as a summary reference to certain assumptions and arguments that define our “thought style”. They are as follows: fact and value are joined (rather than separate); the knower and the known—self and other—are co-constructed; knowledge is always a social affair—a local–historical–cultural (social) co-construction made in conversation, in other kinds of action, and in the artefacts of human activities (‘frozen’ actions so to speak), and so; multiple inter-actions simultaneously (re)produce multiple local cultures and relations, this said; relations may impose one local reality (be mono-logical) or give space to multiplicity (be multi-logical). In this view, the received view of science is but one (socially constructed) way of world making, as is social constructionism, and different ways have different—and very real—consequences.In this paper, we take our relational constructionist style of thinking to examine differing constructions of foot and mouth disease (FMD)¹ in the UK. We do so in order to highlight the dominant relationship construction. We argue that this could be metaphorised as ‘accounting in Babel’—as multiple competing monologues—many of which remained very local and subordinated by a dominant logic. However, from a relational constructionist point of view, it is also possible to argue that social accounting can be done in a more multi-logical way that gives space to dialogue and multiplicity. In the present (relational constructionist) view, accounting is no longer ‘just’ a question of knowledge and methodology but also a question of value and power. To render accounting practices more ethical they must be more multi-voiced and enable ‘power to’ rather than ‘power over’.     

"两型社会"建设区企业社会责任绩效与财务绩效的回归分析

为了研究"两型社会"建设综合配套改革试验区内企业配合国家政策的情况,本文选取了"武汉城市圈"和"长株潭城市群"所有在沪、深上市公司(66家),对其2007-2009年近三年的财务报告进行提取信息,并从利益相关者的角度设计社会责任绩效与财务绩效的指标,建立了企业社会责任绩效与财务绩效的多元回归模型,进行了回归分析,得出了...     

企业社会责任报告鉴证意见是否具有信息含量——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

近年来,我国上市公司披露企业社会责任报告的现象越来越多,企业保证社会责任报告质量的方式有两种:一是独立第三方出具的企业社会责任报告鉴证意见;二是企业董事会对企业社会责任报告质量出具的自我承诺。这两种保证形式是否具有信息含量是大家所关心的问题。本文以沪深两市2009—2010年披露企业社会责任报告的940家上市公司为研究对象,依据信号传递理论,运用事件研究法研究发现:企业社会责任报告鉴证意见具有正向的市场反应,而董事会承诺不具有市场反应。根据我国的制度背景、理论分析和实证结果,从如何完善我国的企业社会责任报告鉴证标准、鉴证主体、鉴证客体、政府部门对董事会承诺的监管重点等方面提出了政策建议。     

The voice of minority shareholders: Online voting and corporate social responsibility

In 2014, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange introduced “Rules for the Implementation of Online Voting” to standardize the implementation of online voting for its listed companies. Using this event as an exogenous shock, we design a difference-in-differences model to show that minority shareholders’ participation in online voting improves firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. We reveal that this improvement is achieved through minority shareholders’ positive influence on firms’ internal control and transparency and is more pronounced for private firms and firms with lower levels of profitability and less external monitoring. Accordingly, since the standardization of online voting, minority shareholders have played an important role in corporate governance and have a positive influence on firms’ sustainable development.     

Corporate social responsibility and social capital

When corporations make an effort to be socially responsible beyond what is required by the law, this effort is often described as strategic—made mainly for the shareholders’ or managers’ benefit. A large body of literature corroborates this belief. But, could the incentives for corporate social responsibility (CSR) come from an altruistic inclination fostered by the social capital of the region in which the firm is headquartered? We investigate whether this phenomenon exists by examining the association between the social capital in the region and the firm’s CSR. We find that a firm from a high social capital region exhibits higher CSR. This result suggests that the self-interest of shareholders or mangers does not explain all of the firm’s CSR, but the altruistic inclination from the region might also play a role.