Technology centrality,bilateral knowledge spillovers and mergers and acquisitions

We construct a search and matching model, which features heterogeneous firms with different management skills and industry-specific knowledge capital, to study individual firms’ behavior in the M&A market. Two firms form a merger if the bilateral knowledge spillovers between them result in a productivity gain, generating a merger surplus larger than the transaction cost. Three key predictions are produced from the model: (i) acquirers with higher technology centrality and management skill exert higher search intensities; (ii) targets with higher technology centrality and lower management skill exert higher search intensities; and (iii) acquirer–target firm pairs with larger bilateral knowledge spillovers generate larger surplus and are more likely to consummate a merger deal. We find strong empirical support for these predictions from merger deals in the U.S. between 1984 and 2020.     

Single vs. Multiple Discount Rates: How to Limit “Influence Costs” in the Capital Allocation Process*

Most finance textbooks suggest that companies evaluate investment projects using discount rates that reflect both the debt capacity and the unique risks of the project. In practice, however, companies often use their company‐wide WACC to evaluate such investments because of the difficulty of (and subjectivity involved in) estimating the risk of individual projects, and the potential for managerial bias and influence to distort the estimates. This article proposes a practicable method for calculating the cost of capital that produces different discount rates for investment projects with different risks while minimizing the “influence costs” that arise when managers have discretion in the choice of discount rates. The proposed approach makes use of market information (in the form of the firm‐wide costs of debt and equity), thereby limiting managerial discretion, while typically still providing a good approximation of theoretically correct, project‐specific discount rates. The key to the method's effectiveness is its use of a project's debt capacity to define the capital structure weights, where debt capacity is defined by the amount of debt financing the project will support without lowering the firm's credit rating.     

Management based critical success factors in the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems

This study examines critical success factors for implementing Enterprise Resource Planning systems using the framework of classical management theory. The study is motivated by conflicting results in earlier studies examining critical success factors in Enterprise Resource Planning implementation, many of which are anecdotal in nature. Ten critical success factors in ERP systems implementation proposed in past literature are selected. The relationship between each of these factors and project success is examined. Project success is defined as organizational impact and on time and on/under budget project completion. Eight implementation projects were qualitatively analyzed using the case study method to examine the proposed relationships. The findings suggest that choosing the right full time project manager, training of personnel, and the presence of a champion relate to project success. The use of consultants, the role of management in reducing user resistance and the use of a steering committee to control the project do not appear to differentiate successful and unsuccessful projects. Integration of ERP planning with business planning, reporting level of the project manager, and active participation of the CEO beyond project approvals, resource allocation and occasional project review, are not found to be critical factors of success. Considering the financial cost and risk associated with these projects, a better understanding of critical success factors will enable practitioners and academics to improve the chance of success in the implementation projects. All organizations implementing ERP, especially small and mid-sized enterprises with limited resources, will benefit from this knowledge.     

Rethinking knowledge: ‘Islamization’ and the future

The Islamization of knowledge debate is central to Muslim futures, focusing on the nature of Muslim identity, modernity and ways of thinking about present and future Muslim reality. The debate, however, has become interwoven with factors that have marginalized Muslim identity—both for participants and observers. This article views Islamization as a civilizational project of rethinking, taking the Qur'an as the frame of reference. Institutional and conceptual approaches are analysed. The development of new disciplines of knowledge within Islamization is seen as having three parameters—an emphasis on holism, the centrality of risk and uncertainty, and acknowledgment of ignorance. Although Islamization involves critique of western civilization, it may seem rejectionist, but synthesis is the aim. The Islamization discourse is at present mainly theoretical; practice requires time and effort.     

REACHING THE RURAL POOR THROUGH PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT: Arguments, Evidence, and Lessons from South Asia

With the limited set of policy instruments typically avaiablein the rural sectors of developing countries, imperfect coverageof the poor and leakage ot the nonpoor must be expected fromeven the most well-intentioned poverty alleviation scheme. Oneway to reach the poor more effectively is to build incentivesfor self-selection into the scheme. Labor-intensive rural publicworks projects have the potential to reach and protect the poor,as well as to create and maintain rural infrastructure. Thelimited evidence for South Asia suggests that few nonpoor personswant to participate, and that both direct and indirect transferever, be rapidly dissipated by a badly concevided and executedproject; the details of how project are selected, designed,and financed are crucial to success in both the short and thelong run.      

Of stars and galaxies – Co-authorship network and research

We examine the association between network centrality and research using the accounting research community setting. We establish co-authorship network using papers published in the five top accounting journals from 1980 to 2016. We find that the co-authorship network in accounting is a “small world” with some most connected authors playing a key role in connecting others. We use machine learning to label published papers with multiple topics and find patterns in topics over time. More importantly, we find that co-authorship network centrality is positively associated with future research productivity and topic innovation and that the impact of centrality on productivity is higher with more senior authors. Further, centrality of an author’s co-authors also has an incrementally positive impact. We conclude that network centrality positively influences research output.     

R&D, knowledge spillovers and stock volatility

Firms improve their know‐how not only by innovations (producing new knowledge), but also by knowledge spillovers (learning from others). The objective of this study is to test for two major hypotheses developed from a theoretical model explaining the relationship between R&D, knowledge spillovers and stock volatility. Analytically, the model suggests that asymmetric information caused by R&D activities with uncertain future output increases stock volatility, even though dividends and consumptions remain unchanged. However, interfirm knowledge spillovers have a negative impact on stock volatility by reducing the degree of asymmetric information. Both hypotheses are supported by empirical evidence from this study.     

Direct or Indirect Cash Flow Statements?

The Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the Financial Reporting Standards Board (FRSB) have issued a joint proposal that will allow reporting entities to choose between the direct and indirect method of reporting cash flow statements. This evidence presented in this paper indicates that the direct cash flow reporting format, relative to the indirect method, leads to better prediction of future firm performance and has a stronger association with share prices. The AASB and the FRSB have to decide whether to support high quality reporting or harmonisation.     

Venture Capital Networks in Southeast Asia: Network characteristics and cohesive subgroups

Venture capital firms (VC) have encountered with uncertainty and risk of asymmetric information due to an investment in early-to-growth stage start-ups with technological base and high growth potential. Venture capital syndication network helps reduce a broad gap of information asymmetry in a venture capital investment. Moreover, network connections are found to be the success factor for venture capitalists under a lack of fully developed institutional environment in emerging market. Venture capital industry in Southeast Asia is nascent yet in demanding and fast growing. Despite a decline in the number of venture deals in the US, the deals keep surging in Southeast Asia (SEA), one of the most significant and dynamic propellers of the world economy. To develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in SEA, it is interesting to examine how VC firms are connected to one another. Even though several literatures found some distinctive network characteristics amidst the US, European and Chinese venture capital market, the Southeast Asian has left unattended. In this paper, we initiate the network of venture capital firms among Southeast Asian nations and explore their relationships through social network analysis. The purposes of this study are to investigate the topological and statistical properties of VC network consisting of small-world behavior, power law distribution, and centrality measure such as degree, closeness, and betweenness. In addition, we classify various levels of connections into subnetworks and examine influential groups of VCs in Southeast Asia.We initiate an empirical study on the characteristics of VC network across different countries in Southeast Asia by using a unique hand-collected dataset of syndicated deals. Social network analysis has initially and preliminarily been applied to the VC network in this region. This paper contributes to VC network literature in providing a unique network structure and network metrics of venture capital in SEA. In managerial contribution, this study provides more structural VC cooperation towards VC syndication networks. This benefits to venture capital firms who are looking for potential partners in Southeast Asian region and start-up companies who are looking for funding with high-networked or influencial VCs. The results also confirm previous evidence of significance on VC networks in emerging market, even if the institution and regulation are claimed to fall behind that in the developed market. This research introduces the fact that the venture capital network in Southeast Asia has small-world pattern and Singapore acts as a hub of venture capital market in the region. Top-ranking VC firms have been listed by network centrality across nations, while multi-company syndications are prevailing in Southeast Asia.     

Output spillovers from changes in sovereign credit ratings

This research examines how a sovereign rating revision of one country influences the economic growth rates of other countries. Rating revisions have significant output spillover effects: A one-notch upgrade (downgrade) prompts on average a significant downward revision of about 0.03% (0.07%) in the consensus forecast of annual economic growth rates of other countries in the two-month period after the event. The spillovers are transmitted through direct and indirect trade and financial linkages between event and non-event countries. The evidence indicates that a predominance of differential (common) spillovers leads upgrades (downgrades) to produce adverse output effects for other countries.     

Sell‐Side Analyst Research and Stock Comovement

We document that a stock's price around a recommendation or forecast covaries with prices of other stocks the issuing analyst covers. The effect of shared analyst coverage on stock price comovement extends beyond analyst activity days. A stock's daily returns covary with the returns of other stocks with which it shares analyst coverage. These links between stock price comovement and shared analyst coverage are consistent with the coverage‐specific information we find in earnings forecasts; analysts who cover both stocks in a pair expect future earnings of the stocks to be more highly correlated than do analysts who cover only one stock from the pair. Collectively, our evidence indicates that analyst research produces coverage‐specific spillovers that raise price comovement among stocks that share analyst coverage. The strength of these spillovers is comparable to spillovers from broad industry and market information in analyst research.     

From Accounting to “Forecounting”*

Using Ross Skinner's 1995 CA Magazine article, “Judgment in Jeopardy", as a stepping stone, we revisit the meaning of professional judgment in accounting in light of developments in standard setting, financial markets, and business operations that have taken place over the past two decades. We argue that it is time to change the view that accountants' professional judgment is the application of accounting‐based knowledge and experience in the selection of an appropriate accounting method. Accountants now face a standard‐setting context that emphasizes the estimation of future cash flows as well as new business and financial realities. This context implies that, in exercising their professional judgment to choose between forecast alternatives, accountants must rely on knowledge and experience from other disciplines (even though this is not well integrated into accounting). Hence, accounting must evolve from its traditional stewardship role to the new role of “forecount‐ing” (the estimation of future cash flows). The implications as well as the challenges of that evolution are discussed.     

Trade, Foreign Direct Investment, and International Technology Transfer: A Survey

What role does trade play in international technology transfer?Do technologies introduced by multinational firms diffuse tolocal firms? What kinds of policies have proved successful inencouraging technology absorption from abroad and why? Usingthese questions as motivation, this article surveys the recenttrade literature on international technology transfer, payingparticular attention to the role of foreign direct investment.The literature argues that trade necessarily encourages growthonly if knowledge spillovers are international in scope. Empiricalevidence on the scope of knowledge spillovers (national versusinternational) is ambiguous. Several recent empirical plant-levelstudies have questioned earlier studies that argued that foreigndirect investment has a positive impact on the productivityof local firms. Yet at the aggregate level, evidence supportsthe view that foreign direct investment has a positive effecton economic growth in the host country.      

Potential pilot problems: Treatment spillovers in financial regulatory experiments

The total effects of a regulatory change consist of direct effects and indirect effects (spillovers), but the standard difference-in-difference approach mostly ignores potential indirect effects. During the 2007 full repeal of the uptick rule, short-sellers become much more aggressive across the board, even in control stocks where the uptick rule is already suspended. This finding is consistent with positive and significant indirect effects on control stocks, likely driven by aggressive broad list-based shorting. In contract, the indirect effect coefficients on shorting aggressiveness are negative for the 2005 partial uptick repeal, possibly due to substitutions between control and treatment stocks.     

Credit risk and financial integration: An application of network analysis

Credit plays a significant role in the performance of the banking sector. This research relates financial integration to the credit risk of banks. We compute a measure of financial connectivity based on network statistics using syndicated loans. Using instrumental variable techniques for a panel of 39 countries over the periods of 1988 to 2014, we analyse the link between credit risk and financial integration. Our findings suggest that borrowing banks do not alleviate credit risk. Also, borrowing banks that are more active in the network also help to compound credit risk. However, the closeness centrality reveals a significant reduction in the credit risk of the borrowing banks. Our findings from individual countries reflect the significance of the country of operation of these banks in the international market.     

Information linkages between emission allowance and energy markets

We employ a rational expectations framework similar to that proposed by Fleming et al. (1998) to examine the source, and nature of, information linkages between the emission allowance and energy markets as gauged by the correlation of return volatilities. Estimating the model for bivariate pairings of securities suggests that market linkages arise from sensitivities to common information rather than from indirect spillovers, with emission allowances most strongly linked to the crude oil market.     

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。     

Delegation and incentives

This article analyzes the relation between authority and incentives. It extends the standard principal‐agent model by a project selection stage in which the principal can either delegate the choice of project to the agent or keep the authority. The agent's subsequent choice of effort depends both on monetary incentives and the selected project. We find that the consideration of effort incentives makes the principal less likely to delegate the authority over projects to the agent. In fact, if the agent is protected by limited liability, delegation is never optimal.     

Market Based Management™*—A Key to Nucor's Success

Ken Iverson, CEO of Nucor Corporation, transformed Nucor from the virtually worthless corporate shell that it was when he took over as president in 1966 into a Fortune 500 giant with current shareholder value in excess of $5 billion. How did Iverson do it? What are the secrets to his outstanding success? This article argues that an important part of the answer is Market Based Management, a relatively new set of management values and practices that aims to bring the power of a free-market society inside companies. Stated in brief, Market Based Management attempts to replace the traditional “command-and-control” management approach with decentralized decision-making that is designed to make full use of employees' “specific knowledge.” Employees' expanded decision-making authority is reinforced by a powerful incentive compensation system that rewards them handsomely for achieving corporate goals. The result, according to the authors, is highly motivated employees who “take ownership” for their role in contributing to the success of the enterprise.     

Scale, scope, and spillovers: the determinants of research productivity in drug discovery

We examine the relationship between firm size and research productivity in the pharmaceutical industry. Using detailed internal firm data, we find that larger research efforts are more productive, not only because they enjoy economies of scale, but also because they realize economies of scope by sustaining diverse portfolios of research projects that capture internal and external knowledge spillovers. In pharmaceuticals, economies of scope in research are important in shaping the boundaries of the firm, and it may be worth tolerating the static efficiency loss attributable to the market power of large firms in exchange for their superior innovative performance.