The role of investment banker directors in M&A

We examine how directors with investment banking experience affect firms? acquisition behavior. We find that firms with investment bankers on the board have a higher probability of making acquisitions. Furthermore, acquirers with investment banker directors experience higher announcement returns, pay lower takeover premiums and advisory fees, and exhibit superior long-run performance. Overall, our results suggest that directors with investment banking experience help firms make better acquisitions, both by identifying suitable targets and by reducing the cost of the deals.     

Exploring the relationship between strategic performance measurement systems and managers' creativity: the mediating role of psychological empowerment and organisational learning

This study explores whether strategic performance measurement systems (SPMSs) are linked to managers' creativity through two mediating variables—organisational learning and psychological empowerment. Using data collected from 92 senior production managers in Australian manufacturing organisations, the study tests these links using a partial least squares structural model. The results from the structural model indicate that SPMSs are indirectly related to the managers' creativity through organisational learning and psychological empowerment. The study also finds that organisational learning is both directly related to creativity, and indirectly related to psychological empowerment. Further, the potential implications for empirical research are discussed.     

The merchant banker, the broker and the company chairman: A new issue case study

This paper explores the roles of a merchant banker, Everard Hambro, and the chairmen of two companies, Thames Iron and Trollope, Colls & Co., in the restructuring of their companies at the beginning of the twentieth century. Their correspondence provides evidence that the choice of corporate capital structure had little to do with company needs or risk characteristics. Instead, Hambro, in concert with stockbrokers, concentrated on ensuring that the securities issued conformed in amount, type and price to market norms, including the avoidance of stock watering. The company chairmen concentrated on ensuring that they retained control and that the new issues were deemed a success.     

The relationship between the frequency of news release and the information asymmetry: The role of uninformed trading

This paper shows that the degree of information asymmetry is lower for firms with more frequent news releases. The relation holds for various measures of information asymmetry such as the probability of information-based trading (PIN), permanent price impact, and adverse selection component of bid-ask spread, even after adjusting for endogeneity between news release and information asymmetry. By decomposing the PIN into intensities of uninformed and informed trades, similarly to Brown and Hillegeist (2007), we find that intensity of uninformed trading increases much more than that of informed trading for firms with more frequent news releases. As a result, information asymmetry, as is measured by PIN, decreases for such firms due to the large increase in the intensity of uninformed trading. Our findings highlight not only the importance of news releases in leveling the playing field of investors but also the role of uninformed investors in reducing trading cost due to information asymmetry.     

The effect of automated service quality on bank financial performance and the mediating role of customer retention

The impact of automated service quality on bank financial performance and the mediating role of customer retention have received little attention, as scholars have focused on issues of usability and measurement. This study begins by showing the impact of technology on the way banks conduct business and proceeds to discuss automated service quality definitions and the potential influence of automated service quality on retention and financial performance. A mediating model that links service quality to bank financial performance through customer retention in the automated service context is proposed. The results of this empirical study confirm the role of customer retention as a mediator in the effect of automated service quality on financial performance. Implications of the findings are discussed and the limitations of the study and the potential for future research are considered.     

The cost of equity of internet stocks: a downside risk approach

Beta as a measure of risk has been under fire for many years. Although practitioners still widely use the CAPM to estimate the cost of equity of companies, they are aware of its problems and are looking for alternatives. A possible alternative is to estimate the cost of equity based on the semideviation, a well-known and intuitively plausible measure of downside risk. Complementing evidence reported elsewhere about the ability of the semideviation to explain the cross-section of returns in emerging markets and that of industries in emerging markets, this article reports results showing that the semideviation also explains the cross-section of Internet stock returns.     

The adoption of internet banking: An institutional theory perspective

Several models have been proposed in the literature to understand technology acceptance in which social environmental factors are not primarily addressed. Drawing upon the social contagion theory and institutional theory, this study proposes a model to examine three social environmental factors of normative, coercive and mimetic pressures within the internet banking (IB) context. The model is tested using survey data from 124 respondents. The results reveal that normative and coercive pressures significantly influence the attitude and intention of adopting IB, while mimetic pressures appear not to. Attitude plays a mediating role between institutional pressures and IB adoption. This study spearheads an institutional analysis at the individual level within the IB context. The findings also provide valuable insights for bank managers to manage the IB services.     

The role of accountability in determining the relationship between financial reporting quality and the performance of public organizations: Evidence from Vietnam

Drawing on the new public management and agency theory, this study examines the mediating role of accountability in the relationship between financial-reporting quality and the performance of public organizations. The research model and hypotheses tested with a survey of 177 responses obtained from accountants and managers working in the public sector in Vietnam. Our analysis shows that accountability has a mediating role on the relationship between financial-reporting quality and performance, with significant implications for public organizations seeking to improve both their financial-reporting quality and their organizational performance with better designed systems of accountability.     

The role of a crisis in reshaping the role of accounting

Prior to 2001, international accounting standards (IAS) were insufficiently attractive to gain the support of US regulators. The potential role of IAS in the US gained prominence during a period of extreme financial reporting instability in 2001–2002. Emerging opinion increasingly upheld principles-based rather than rules-based accounting standards in the face of the financial reporting crisis. But to promote any active shift in the US position, an institutionally legitimate infrastructure for the international accounting standards setter had to be created. As this was taking shape, the globalisation of business activities grew with inter-organizational linkages and cross-national financial inter-dependencies and flows becoming increasingly complex. Given the extensively uncertain, uneven and constantly evolving nature of global business changes, the aptness of applying judgment in assessing financial performance and position rather than relying on the application of pre-defined rules continued to achieve wider acceptance. The argument is made in the paper that international financial reporting standards are today seen to fulfil a global risk mitigating role founded on a logic that had to first gain political and institutional legitimacy and that also had to be viewed as being responsive to perceived market imperatives.     

互联网金融与传统金融融合之难题

在2014年中关村论坛年会"互联网金融:融合与发展"分论坛上,中关村管委会副主任杨建华表示,由于互联网金融巨头的介入,传统的银行机构多年来的重要盈利的业务方向,包括支付、结算和利息收入类等服务已经面临着诸多挑战。而互联网金融与传统金融的共生、融合、发展,必须依托有绝对公信力的信用信息体系的建设。     

Stakeholder engagement in internet financial reporting: The diffusion of XBRL in the UK

Internet financial reporting is now widespread with most medium and large companies in the developed world providing a wide variety of financial data online. However, much of this information mirrors the paper versions of financial reports, often with little attempt to enhance the decision usability of the data, providing a so called ‘first generation’ of online reporting (ICAEW, 2004). eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has been designed to provide a ‘second generation’ of online reporting, specifically to enhance the usability of the data. Documents rendered in XBRL are digitally-enabled so that it is easier for stakeholders to extract information directly into spreadsheets, or any other XBRL-enabled analysis software, without the need to re-key data thus providing significant improvements in information flows and enhancing inter-company comparability.XBRL consortia have spent more than 15 years promulgating the use of this technology within the business and government communities. However, despite their efforts XBRL has not become widely diffused, there is little stakeholder engagement and very few organisations have voluntarily adopted XBRL in practice.The results of a questionnaire survey in the UK indicate that awareness of XBRL, and second generation reporting more generally, resides in key champions but there is little diffusion outside this narrow set of stakeholders. Regulatory engagement seems to be the only impetus for diffusion and better channels of communication within stakeholder networks, such as between regulators, preparers, users and the XBRL community are needed. This paper suggests that currently the supply-push for XBRL is failing to produce effective use of this technology in the UK. Greater regulatory commitment is now needed to create an impetus for XBRL such as creating tools and making publicly available, accessible, repositories of XBRL data. Unless this happens, diffusion will not occur, and the demand-pull which is now needed will vanish and XBRL will fade and die.     

Integration of financial and management accounting systems: The mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness

Two fundamental options exist for management accounting system (MAS) design: Either financial records can be used as a database for management accounting (integrated accounting system design), or the MAS can be based upon a separate system, i.e., a third set of books beside financial and tax accounting records. Since the 1990s, many German-speaking firms have changed from the second to the first option, which has instigated a highly controversial debate.Our paper contributes to this debate by empirically analyzing (1) whether the integration of financial and management accounting has a positive impact on controllership effectiveness, and (2) what causal inferences relate both variables. We use structural equation modelling for a sample of 149 dyads surveyed from German top 1500 firms. We identify no significant effect of the technical aspects of MAS integration, but a fully mediating influence of a consistent financial language on controllership effectiveness. Our results thus imply that consistency with financial reporting is an important property of MAS design from management's point of view.     

基层央行内联网安全系统建设的主要问题及对策

随着人民银行信息化建设的不断推进,局域网的安全问题越来越重要,人民银行从总行到各级分支机构投入了大量的人力物力开展人民银行内联网的安全系统建设,由早期的对外网访问的简单过滤、拦截到对外网的边界保护和对内部网络管理审计的全面的网络安全系统,网络的实时监控、综合分析和应急响应能力都取得了长足的进步。     

Corporate Hedging: The Relevance of Contract Specifications and Banking Relationships

This article examines the contribution of hedging to firm value and the cost of hedging in a unified framework. Optimal hedging and firm value are explicitly linked to firm risk, the type of debt covenants and the relative priority of the hedging contract. It is shown that in some cases hedging is possible only if the counterparty to the forward contract also holds a significant portion of the debt. Also, the spread in the hedging contract reduces the optimal amount of hedging to less than the minimum-variance hedge ratio. Among other results this article elucidates why some firms hedge using forward contracts while other firms hedge in the futures markets, as well as why higher priority forward contracts are more efficient hedging vehicles.     

Corporate Hedging: The Relevance of Contract Specifications and Banking Relationships

This article examines the contribution of hedging to firm valueand the cost of hedging in a unified framework. Optimal hedgingand firm value are explicitly linked to firm risk, the typeof debt covenants and the relative priority of the hedging contract.It is shown that in some cases hedging is possible only if thecounterparty to the forward contract also holds a significantportion of the debt. Also, the spread in the hedging contractreduces the optimal amount of hedging to less than the minimum-variancehedge ratio. Among other results this article elucidates whysome firms hedge using forward contracts while other firms hedgein the futures markets, as well as why higher priority forwardcontracts are more efficient hedging vehicles. JEL Classificationnumbers: G13, G22 and G33.     

Application of the controllability principle and managerial performance: The role of role perceptions

The controllability principle stipulates that the evaluation of a manager should be based only on elements that are under the manager's control. Arguments for and against its application are theoretically well understood, but empirical evidence based on the evaluation of the perceptions of managers and their implications for managerial performance is scarce. By empirically analyzing the effects on managerial performance, this paper explores managers’ responses to the application of the controllability principle. We draw on role theory and analyze how role ambiguity and role conflict mediate this basic relationship. Moreover, we test whether application of the controllability principle equally affects role perceptions of top-level managers and those of lower and middle-level managers. Empirical analysis of survey responses from 440 managers reveals that role perceptions completely mediate the effect of application of the controllability principle on managerial performance. This effect is insignificant in the group of top-level managers, who appear to cope with uncontrollable factors more effectively.     

The role of attitudinal loyalty in the development of customer relationship management strategy within service firms

To facilitate the management of customer relationships, software manufacturers have developed customer relationship management (CRM) systems. These are enterprise-wide applications that can provide a single view of any customer's interactions with the company by tracking communications from both sides, recording purchases and thus developing an understanding of each customer's preferences. The need to generate behavioural loyalty has been identified as one of the major drivers for implementing CRM systems. There is relatively little research on attitudinal loyalty and CRM, however, with the bulk of the research conducted so far being focused on behavioural loyalty. The emphasis on behavioural loyalty has led to CRM being used to develop behavioural loyalty strategies. Generally speaking these strategies involve creating loyalty programmes, where incentives are offered to generate repeat purchase, or to sell more of the organisation's products and services to existing customers. The purpose of this research is to investigate the objectives and strategies of CRM in the finance industry and to compare these with the CRM objectives and strategies found in other service industries. The authors investigate to what degree the development of attitudinal loyalty is a factor in the creation of CRM strategy. This study is a qualitative study made up of 25 one-hour interviews with marketing and CRM managers. These 25 interviews consist of 11 interviews from the finance industry and 14 interviews from other industries as comparators. The results will be presented and contributions, limitations and suggestions for further research discussed.     

网民眼中的国有企业改革

下里巴人9898:摘自SOHU财经论坛经济学堂 鄙人以为中国的国有企业改革已经在很多方面有所突破,但人事制度还没有完全分开,不能把企业雇员当成公务员看待,也不能再套用公务员的薪水标准,否则不利于企业效率,影响企业的市场竞争力.     

新加坡金融管理局《网上银行技术风险管理指引》（一）

网上银行的出现一定程度上改变了传统金融机构的运营方式和业务运营模式,另一方面也给银行带来新的风险。如何在给客户带来便利的同时保障网银交易的安全性和系统运行的稳定性也是各家银行关注的重点问题。本刊将连续刊载由深圳发展银行王光石编译的新加坡金融管理局《网上银行技术风险管理指引》（2008年6月颁布）,以更好地促进我国网上银行技术风险管理的发展。该指引是新加坡金融管理局从行业内有效的实践操作中逐步总结提炼出来的,这些内容对国内网上银行的监管,对金融机构制定网上银行风险管控流程与管理制度有重要的参考价值。     

IT governance: Objectives and assurances in internet banking

This paper develops and tests a new factor of the trust model in electronic commerce; namely, internet banking. Internal control of internet banking is very consistent with high levels of trust factors such as security, privacy, and other risk issues. However, this type of association has not yet been widely recognized as a trusted model from the consumer's electronic commerce point of view. This study attempts to create new factors in IT governance and the COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technologies) assurance seal. The empirical results of this experiment show that customer familiarity with IT governance and the COBIT assurance seal has impacted customers' trust in internet banking. Moreover, the results also show that perceived internet banking quality and reputation impact customers' trust in internet banking. Given the results of this study, we propose future research aimed at developing a COBIT assurance web seal of internal control, applicable to information technology based on IT governance.