What’s in a name? What leads a firm to change its name and what the new name foreshadows

This paper examines corporate name changes. This paper connects different types of corporate name changes to the reputational concerns that precede them and to the important corporate events and performance changes that follow them. The empirical results suggest that a firm adopts a radically different name to disassociate from a poor reputation, the name of one of its well-recognized brands to associate with a good reputation, or a minor change in its name by adding or deleting a part of its name that identifies it with a particular product to accompany a narrower business focus or a broader business focus. The empirical results also suggest that, except for radical name changes, significant organizational upheaval follows most corporate name changes. The strength of the firm’s subsequent economic performance is tied to changes in the business direction that the type of name change foreshadows.     

What is in a Name? Group Coordination or Consolidation Plan—What is Allowed Under the EIR Recast?

The European Insolvency Regulation Recast allows for group coordination proceedings if insolvency proceedings have been opened against different companies belonging to a single group. Group coordination proceedings imply the drafting of a group coordination plan in order to define an integrated solution to the group's problems. This plan shall not include recommendations as to any consolidation of proceedings or insolvency estates. Against the backdrop of the evolving notion of ‘procedural consolidation’ and the fact the insolvency practitioners and courts concerned have to cooperate and communicate with each other, this prohibition is misplaced and should be interpreted to mean only that main or secondary proceedings opened in a member state cannot be transferred to another jurisdiction. The effective administration of insolvency proceedings of related group companies often demands an integrated solution to the group's problems, which will inevitably lead to some form of consolidation. Copyright © 2016 INSOL International and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What is the investment loss due to uncertainty?

We investigate the effect of uncertainty on investment. We employ a unique dataset of 25,000 Greek firms' balance sheets for 14 years covering the period before and after the eurozone crisis. A dynamic factor model is employed to proxy uncertainty. The investment performance of 14 sectors is examined within a dynamic investment model. Robust GMM estimates of the investment rate model reveal a high degree of heterogeneity among these sectors. Overall uncertainty affects negatively investment performance and this effect substantially increased in the years of crisis. Agriculture and Mining are the least affected and the most affected ones include Manufacturing, Real Estate and Hotels. Focusing on the response of investment to uncertainty, it emerges that (relative) smaller firms are affected more compared to larger ones.     

What is a global manager?

Riven by ideology, religion, and mistrust, the world seems more fragmented than at any time since, arguably, World War II. But however deep the political divisions, business operations continue to span the globe, and executives still have to figure out how to run them efficiently and well. In "What Is a Global Manager?" (first published in September-October 1992), business professors Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal lay out a model for a management structure that balances the local, regional, and global demands placed on companies operating across the world's many borders. In the volatile world of transnational corporations, there is no such thing as a "universal" global manager, the authors say. Rather, there are three groups of specialists: business managers, country managers, and functional managers. And there are the top executives at corporate headquarters who manage the complex interactions between the three--and can identify and develop the talented executives a successful transnational requires. This kind of organizational structure characterizes a transnational rather than an old-line multinational, international, or global company. Transnationals integrate assets, resources, and diverse people in operating units around the world. Through a flexible management process, in which business, country, and functional managers form a triad of different perspectives that balance one another, transnational companies can build three strategic capabilities: global-scale efficiency and competitiveness; national-level responsiveness and flexibility; and cross-market capacity to leverage learning on a worldwide basis. Through a close look at the successful careers of Leif Johansson of Electrolux, Howard Gottlieb of NEC, and Wahib Zaki of Procter & Gamble, the authors illustrate the skills that each managerial specialist requires.     

What is a global manager?

To compete around the world, a company needs three strategic capabilities: global-scale efficiency, local responsiveness, and the ability to leverage learning worldwide. No single "global" manager can build these capabilities. Rather, groups of specialized managers must integrate assets, resources, and people in diverse operating units. Such managers are made, not born. And how to make them is--and must be--the foremost question for corporate managers. Drawing on their research with leading transnational corporations, Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal identify three types of global managers. They also illustrate the responsibilities each position involves through a close look at the careers of successful executives: Leif Johansson of Electrolux, Howard Gottlieb of NEC, and Wahib Zaki of Procter & Gamble. The first type is the global business or product-division manager who must build worldwide efficiency and competitiveness. These managers recognize cross-border opportunities and risks as well as link activities and capabilities around the world. The second is the country manager whose unit is the building block for worldwide operations. These managers are responsible for understanding and interpreting local markets, building local resources and capabilities, and contributing to--and participating in--the development of global strategy. Finally, there are worldwide functional specialists--the managers whose potential is least appreciated in many traditional multinational companies. To transfer expertise from one unit to another and leverage learning, these managers must scan the company for good ideas and best practice, cross-pollinate among units, and champion innovations with worldwide applications.     

What good is a volatility model?

A volatility model must be able to forecast volatility; this is the central requirement in almost all financial applications. In this paper we outline some stylized facts about volatility that should be incorporated in a model: pronounced persistence and mean-reversion, asymmetry such that the sign of an innovation also affects volatility and the possibility of exogenous or pre-determined variables influencing volatility. We use data on the Dow Jones Industrial Index to illustrate these stylized facts, and the ability of GARCH-type models to capture these features. We conclude with some challenges for future research in this area.     

The Namesake: Futures; futures studies; futurology; futuristic; foresight—What's in a name?

The term we used to describe the study of alternative futures is important. Disciplines and discourses do not emerge from a vacuum but have a history and a cultural context; and their names can hide as much as they reveal. This paper examines such terms as ‘futurology’ and ‘foresight’, and argues that to emphasise plurality and diversity the study of the future is best served by the moniker ‘futures studies’. It suggests that remembering the history of futures discourse is necessary to resolve the crisis of identity and meaning, and frequent fruitless reinvention, of the field. Finally, it presents Sardar's four laws of futures studies: futures studies are wicked (they deal largely with complex, interconnected problems), MAD (emphasise Mutually Assured Diversity), sceptical (question dominant axioms and assumptions) and futureless (bear fruit largely in the present).     

What is the best Lévy model for stock indices? A comparative study with a view to time consistency

Financial Markets and Portfolio Management - Lévy models are frequently used for asset log-returns. An important criterion is the distributional assumption on the increments. Candidates...     

What is progress in transdisciplinary research?

In disciplinary research progress is reached and assessed by referring to the state of research in a specific field. But what is progress in transdisciplinary research, where several disciplines and further societal actors may be involved? Based on the conception of transdisciplinary research as a collaboration of academic as well as non-academic thought-styles, and based on the understanding of transdisciplinary research as research that develops a comprehensive, multi-perspective, common-good oriented and useful approach to a socially relevant issue, the question of progress is discussed for four view-points: (a) the people concerned about the issue are much less interested in the question of progress in transdisciplinary research than in a better handling of the real world problem; (b) members of a disciplinary, business, governmental or civil society's thought-style, who gain a more comprehensive understanding of an issue through the transdisciplinary research process, are more interested in further elaborating the issue within their thought-style, than in general lessons on progress; (c) progress on the level of personal experience mainly means that members of academic or non-academic thought-styles realize that they are a member of a specific thought-style among others. Progress would be made by integrating this experience in general education and special training; (d) finally a lot of general lessons can be learned and elaborated as tools, cases studies and approaches form the perspective of a thought-style interested in how to understand and manage transdisciplinary research.     

What is the value of recourse to asset-backed securities? A clinical study of credit card banks

The present paper uses credit card securitization data to show that recourse to securitized debt may benefit short- and long-term stock returns and long-term operating performance of sponsors. Therefore, although recourse violates regulatory guidelines and FASB140, recourse may have beneficial effects for sponsors by revealing that the shocks that made recourse necessary are transitory. Sponsors providing recourse do, however, experience an abnormal delay in their normal issuance cycle around the event. Hence, it appears that the asset-backed securities market is like the commercial paper market, where a firm’s ability to issue is directly correlated with credit quality.     

What is the Intrinsic Value of the Dow?

We model the time-series relation between price and intrinsic value as a cointegrated system, so that price and value are long-term convergent. In this framework, we compare the performance of alternative estimates of intrinsic value for the Dow 30 stocks. During 1963–1996, traditional market multiples (e.g., B/P, E/P, and D/P ratios) have little predictive power. However, a V/P ratio, where V is based on a residual income valuation model, has statistically reliable predictive power. Further analysis shows time-varying interest rates and analyst forecasts are important to the success of V. Alternative forecast horizons and risk premia are less important.     

What is an InsurTech? A scientific approach for defining the term

The insurance sector has been transformed as a result of the impact of InsurTech. However, although InsurTech has become a highly relevant concept in recent years, there has yet to be an agreed-upon meaning of InsurTech. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a solid definition that provides a clear understanding of the term InsurTech. For this purpose, an essential study of the complete scientific production has been carried out through the results obtained for InsurTech in the most relevant databases up to December 31, 2021. This paper aims to define the term InsurTech considering all the contributions made by scholars in the existing academic literature. The research methodology has consisted of an extensive systematic literature review merged with a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the definitions of InsurTech through a three-stage procedure. A total of 111 academic articles referring to InsurTech have been found. Based on a rigorous analysis and building on the common elements of the 17 meanings provided by the academics, a definition of Insurtech from a scientific approach has been presented. Finally, the nuances of this definition for an Insurtech to be considered as such are discussed and explained.     

Bankruptcy: What is left for the creditors? A Belgian exploratory study

It is sometimes alleged that in cases of bankruptcy, there is often not much left for the creditors, especially for the ordinary unsecured creditors. This article examines, in an exploratory way, what the different classes of creditors, depending on their priority position, recover in cases of bankruptcy in Belgium, by investigating a sample of 286 bankruptcy files from the Commercial Court of Ghent (Belgium's second largest city). This article also explores what impact some existing proposals to improve the position of ordinary unsecured creditors in the event of bankruptcy would have had on the bankruptcy cases studied.     

What is a Conceptual Framework for Financial Reporting?

ABSTRACT

Despite more than forty years of exploration into constructing a conceptual framework (CF) for financial reporting the question ‘What is a CF?’ has not been adequately answered. The result is that those who construct CFs are not guided by a clear concept of a CF and communication about CFs is undermined by differences in understanding what it is. There has been a failure to undertake conceptual enquiry into the nature of a CF or into the expressions used in describing it. This paper addresses this failure by undertaking such a conceptual enquiry. Existing explanations of CFs are examined and found to be inadequate. What is wanted from a CF is identified and explained and this is used to prescribe what should be understood by the expression ‘conceptual framework’. A new characterisation of CFs is given that should assist any future construction of new CFs. Problems that may be faced by those who seek to construct a CF are identified.     

What actions can be taken to increase whistle-blowing in the classroom?

This study surveyed undergraduate business students on various issues concerning the potential of students whistle-blowing when they observe other students cheating. Developing the courage of one's conviction in our accounting students is important to accounting educators as we are also emphasizing traits such as integrity, skepticism, and professionalism to our accounting students. As the data were gathered in the first introductory-accounting course, students’ cheating and whistle-blowing attitudes were already established. We found that, while students who had cheated in the past were more likely to suggest incentives and cash rewards, students who had never cheated were more concerned with increased confidentiality. Consequently, the need for assuring strict confidentiality is as important to our accounting students as it was to our former accounting clients in developing the trust necessary for the disclosure of sensitive information.