Study on Finance Reformation Mechanism to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises＇ Finance Guarantee System Development

我国中小企业金融担保体系所存在的制度性缺陷,将在一定程度上影响我国中小企业金融担保行业的可持续发展,必须通过构建科学高效的金融创新机制来治理缺陷。文章采用实地调查和问卷调查所获得的147家担保机构的数据,以实证分析当前我国中小企业金融担保体系所存在制度性缺陷为切入点,在此基础上,提出了构建我国中小企业金融担保体系发展的金融创新机制的战略性思路。该研究成果将不仅发展和完善中小企业金融担保理论,而且对于加快推进我国中小企业金融担保业的科学化发展进程,实现我国中小企业金融担保业的可持续发展,具有非常重要的理论指导与现实意义。     

Pitching research: ‘qualitative cousins’ and the ‘extended family’

This study has two related goals – one very specific and one more general. The specific goal is to constructively engage with Lodhia (2017) on the issue of whether and to what extent ‘qualitative cousins’ are well served by Faff's (2015) original pitching research (PR) template. Using this ‘cousins’ focus as a primer, the more general goal is to update the agenda created by Faff (2015) and in so doing, explore the ‘extended family’ of PR work/resources now available.     

Pitching research: ‘Qualitative cousins’, the ‘extended family’ and ‘living harmoniously’

This paper reviews Faff (2018) with particular emphasis on the Qualitative Pitch proposed by Lodhia (2017). In the spirit of constructive engagement envisioned by Faff (2018), the purpose of this paper is to revisit the Qualitative Pitch and to clarify any misconceptions or misunderstandings. This paper is not a critique but rather a reflective piece on the potential offered by the Qualitative Pitch as a viable tool for pitching qualitative research ideas. The basic premise of this paper is that the Qualitative Pitch, drawing upon Faff's (2015) pitching template, provides qualitative researchers with specific tools and a consistent framework for articulating qualitative research. It is therefore proposed that the Qualitative Pitch should be the used as the initial template for designing qualitative research projects rather than being transitioned to once a threshold barrier is reached.     

‘Slow-burn’ spillover and ‘fast and furious’ contagion: a study of international stock markets

‘Fast and furious’ contagion across capital markets is an important phenomenon in an increasingly integrated financial world. Different from ‘slow-burn’ spillover or interdependence among these markets, ‘fast and furious’ contagion can occur instantly. To investigate this kind of contagion from the US, Japan and Hong Kong to other Asian economies, we design a research strategy to capture fundamental interdependence, or ‘slow-burn’ spillover, among these stock markets as well as short-term departures from this interdependence. Based on these departures, we propose a new contagion measure which reveals how one market responds over time to a shock in another market. We also propose international portfolio analysis for contagion via variance decomposition from the portfolio manager’s perspective. Using this research strategy, we find that the US stock market was cointegrated with the Asian stock markets during four specific periods from 3 July 1997 to 30 April 2014. Beyond this fundamental interdependence, the shocks from both Japan and Hong Kong have significant ‘fast and furious’ contagion effects on other Asian stock markets during the US subprime crisis, but the shocks from the US have no such effects.     

Striking a balance between ‘Sir’ and ‘Dude’

This postcard reflects on an issue common to many academics, whether they teach accounting, politics or—as in my case—commercial law to business and economics students. Creating an open and effective relationship with students is a balancing act undertaken by educators across the board—and no less by my accounting colleagues down the hall. In teaching commercial law to accounting students, I was recently reminded of the importance and occasional difficulty in maintaining a healthy ‘two-way’ relationship. I trust the following may connect with accounting educators and others who are also trying to achieve the right balance.     

Factors affecting investors’ intention to purchase gold and silver bullion: evidence from Malaysia

Gold and silver prices have surged since the 1980s, and they have been used as a store of value for fear of a financial meltdown. However, gold and silver in the form of bullion are still not so popular compared with other gold and silver products (jewellery) and other financial instruments in Malaysia. Limited study has actually verified the factors that affect the investors’ intention to purchase bullion. Thus, this study explores factors affecting investors’ behaviour and their intention to purchase bullion based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. This study also examines the moderating effect of scepticism between investors’ behaviour and their intention to purchase bullion. A total of 208 sets of data collected in a self-administered online structured survey was analysed using PLS-SEM. This study finds that investors’ behavioural belief and control belief significantly and positively affect their respective attitude towards behaviour and perceived behavioural control and, thus, intention to purchase bullion. Results are found insignificant for normative belief, normative attitude and intention to purchase bullion and the moderating effect of scepticism in affecting investors’ intention to purchase bullion. The findings of this study hope to provide insight and deeper understanding to bullion traders and financial advisors in improving their marketing strategies in growing interest in the bullion market.

     

‘Agents-in-focus’ and ‘Agents-in-context’: The strong structuration analysis of central government accounting practices and reforms in Nepal

Drawing on Stones’ (2005) strong structuration theory, the paper unfolds why and how the key stakeholders of central government accounting in Nepal are involved in the reproduction of routinised accounting practices, resisting the externally-propagated changes. Government accountants (the agents-in-focus) through their capability to control the budget routines have enjoyed a powerful social position in their position–practice relations with the agents-in-context, i.e. professional accountants and international consultants, higher-level officers and administrators, auditors, and politicians. Social position along with historically-imbued dispositions and their conduct and context analysis have enabled government accountants to strategically exercise their agency. Government accountants have articulated duality and a dialectic relation with the agents-in-context, which have resulted in the reproduction of everyday accounting practice and the resistance to the World Bank-led reforms, such as accrual accounting and, more recently, the Cash-Basis IPSAS.     

Technical modernism and social conservatism: France's communications ‘illness’

‘Television of the future’, telematics, videodiscs—information and communications technologies are constantly developing and new products coming on to the market. Governments have, from time to time, become concerned about the possible effects of this flood of new technology on national cultures and economies. For over a decade commissions and inquiries in both industrial countries and international organizations have attempted—with varying degrees of success—to identify the potential benefits and dangers of this technological revolution, and have proposed a range of development paths and regulatory measures. Fundamental differences of opinion exist about analysis of the situation and possible regulation, but one fact is at least universally accepted—new communications technology is global in scope, although each country reacts to it in its own way. The global development of new telecommunications systems seems to demonstrate the hold of multinational enterprise on all societies—the efficient standardization of ideas and culture as well as technological hardware, of basic consumer goods for human survival as well as weapons which could eradicate human life.     

Demographic Dividends in the ‘South’, Ageing ‘North’, and ‘South-South’ Trade Diversification

The absence of clear convergence in incomes per capita and welfare between the North and the South, even in the face of spectacular growth rates in GDP in the emerging South, might be due to a terms of trade deterioration resulting from an expansion of production in the South which depresses the product’s price on world markets. This may originate from a “technical catch up” and also from a “demographic dividend” in the South relative to an ageing North. This article illustrates that some South-South trade diversification might mitigate the terms of trade deterioration and increase welfare gains in the South. We use a multicountry overlapping-generation general equilibrium model to simulate the magnitude of the terms of trade effect due to a demographic dividend in Turkey, and show that some trade diversification away from EU toward the South is a welfare improving policy for Turkey.     

The magic of branding: The role of ‘pledge’, ‘turn’ and ‘prestige’ in fostering consumer trust in financial services

The purpose of this article is to study the impact of brand image on consumer trust through empirical investigation in the context of the financial services sector. While trust helps to bind consumers to brands, a strong brand image works like magic in reducing consumers’ risk perception and promoting trust. This study analyses how brand image influences consumers’ trusting intention through operationalising an interdisciplinary brand-trust model. Constructs and measures were drawn from interdisciplinary brand and trust literature and tested through employing EFA, CFA and structural equation modelling. Data were collected through a quantitative survey of 300 financial services consumers. Using the analogy of a magic trick, the study unveils the key role of financial services branding in engendering consumer trust in the ‘pledge’ or ‘prestige’ parts of the trick but not in the ‘turn’. The research contributes to the convergent and mutually inclusive theories of trust and branding as well as services marketing literature. For managers and policymakers in the financial services sector the findings will help them to effectively manage brand image and foster consumers’ trusting intention.     

Authors’ Reply: Credit Standing and the Fair Value of Liabilities: A Critique - Discussion by Marsha Wallace

Abstract

As investment plays an increasingly important role in the insurance business, ruin analysis in the presence of stochastic interest (or stochastic return on investments) has become a key issue in modern risk theory, and the related results should be of interest to actuaries. Although the study of insurance risk models with stochastic interest has attracted a fair amount of attention in recent years, many significant ruin problems associated with these models remain to be investigated. In this paper we consider a risk process with stochastic interest in which the basic risk process is the classical risk process and the stochastic interest process (or the stochastic return-on-investmentgenerating process) is a compound Poisson process with positive drift. Within this framework, we first derive an integro-differential equation for the Gerber-Shiu expected discounted penalty function, and then obtain an exact solution to the equation. We also obtain closed-form expressions for the expected discounted penalty function in some special cases. Finally, we examine a lower bound for the ruin probability of the risk process.     

Acquirers’ earnings management ahead of stock-for-stock bids in ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ markets

The accounting literature has found evidence that acquirers in stock-for-stock M&A have typically managed earnings upwards ahead of a bid. Other literatures have concluded that, when stock prices are high and rising, M&A is higher, more M&A is financed with stock, market sentiment and stockholders’ perceptions of information appear to change, and in these circumstances new (arbitrage) motivations for M&A emerge. This paper revisits earnings management ahead of M&A in the light of these findings, comparing experience in ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ markets. It finds that such earnings management is more pronounced in hot markets; that only in such markets are positive discretionary accruals commonly associated with positive abnormal returns on the announcement of earnings; and that in such markets – against the expectations from signalling theory – these positive returns are not reversed on announcement of a stock-for-stock bid. The results suggest that the economic benefits achieved by engaging in earnings management during hot markets are indeed significant: in hot markets, we estimate that on average share acquirers engage in working capital accrual management equivalent to over a third of the average acquirer’s return on total assets in that year; and that this earnings management is associated with increases in market value which are statistically and economically significant, enabling the bidder to secure control of the target with fewer shares.     

‘Passionate and professional’: reconciling logics in public service accounting

In order to deliver public value, the UK government sought to build relationships and connect ‘the public’ with public servants (including back-office workers), but with what effect? Drawing on interviews with public service accountants, the authors found that how these accountants conceptualized ‘the public’—as society or people—shaped whether public value was considered as a monetary or moral concept. Accountants who regarded the public as people spoke of an improper level of involvement and struggled to maintain their professionalism.     

Determinants of hedge fund performance during ‘good’ and ‘bad’ economic periods

We analyse the drivers of hedge fund performance, focusing simultaneously on fund size, age, lockup period, fund strategies, business cycles and different market conditions, dealing with the omitted variable bias. We use exogenous break points and a switching Markov model to endogenously determine different market conditions. We find that HFs deliver positive alpha only during “good” times, irrespective of their fundamentals. During “bad” times, they minimise their systematic risk. Small and young funds, and those with redemption restrictions deliver higher alpha compared to their peers during “good” times. Finally, specific strategies deliver significantly negative alpha during “bad” times.     

On theory as a ‘deliverable’ and its relevance in ‘policy’ arenas

This paper comments on Lee Parker's paper on “Qualitative management accounting research: deliverables and relevance”. Using it as a starting point, it highlights the need for more informed modes of theorizing as opposed to ‘more theories’ and the performative effects of theorising. Theories and theorising already matter although what they ‘deliver’ and influence will be contingent on their instantiation in specific action nets. Further, in order that such social practices might continue to generate desirable consequences, stronger forms of research training should be developed.     

‘Weighting and Scoring’ in Theory and in Practice

Starting with the Treasury's Green Book definition of the ‘weighting and scoring’ technique in option appraisal, the authors resolve a challenging theoretical paradox and then look at the strength of the current bridge between theory and its practical implementation. Two case studies in which the technique is treated as ‘standard NHS practice’ are critically evaluated. The article concludes with suggestions for better implementation of such easily abused quantitative methods.